Scandalous, that was the truth of the matter. Moral decadence, Sapphic love. One simply could not condone such actions and yet, and yet, well - Miss Oswald was a truly exquisite audience for preliminary ideas, primarily because she was from the future and already an aficionado of Jane's work, a schoolmistress who taught English, who could truly appreciate the writing.
At least, that was how it started, Jane told herself that. It was so rare to meet another woman who understood her, on an intellectual level, and their friendship had blossomed from there. The Scotsman, who hung around like a malignant shadow, glowering at everyone from beneath owl-like brows, had no patience for their literary conversations, and would at a moment's notice make a sudden, unexpected exit, often leaving an incomplete sentence in his wake.
He was like that, Miss Oswald - Clara - said. In many ways, his departure was always a pleasure, as it left room for them to talk uninterrupted for hours.
All they did was talk.
Until Clara kissed her. Or was it the other way? - no, it mattered not. What mattered was it had happened, and continued to happen on later visits, which could be weeks or months apart.
Really, it was a most frustrating situation. Jane took to including little references and codes into her work, cyphers only Clara would understand. Conducting elaborate practical jokes whenever Miss Oswald deigned to frequent a convenient time and place, in proximity to Miss Austen. Clara responded in kind, and soon all-out war was declared, a great undignified childishness Jane could neither explain nor do anything but embrace.
Her family were, naturally, entirely unaware of the situation. They didn't so much as suspect. Miss Clara was a welcome friend to the family, irregular as her visits were, and it was their belief that the Scottish Doctor was some sort of relative, father or uncle most like, an intelligent man who, while abrasive and uncouth, could be a source of great witticism and merriment when the mood was upon him. A most unusual man, Jane mused, a great puzzle. He did not fit anywhere into her admittedly limited view of the world. Doctors were respectable men. This man had a wildness in his eyes, adventure in his soul, and a distance about him that betrayed inhumanity. As Clara's confidant, Jane listened to stories of worlds beyond the stars, forms of life from the skies, wanderers in space and time, and how the Time Lord called the Doctor fitted into a chaotic, warring universe.
Between visits, Jane wrote and wrote, a flurry of activity; she had to be ready, to get the next piece completed for Clara's next visit. When Clara did arrive, they took turns: the schoolmistress speaking of Vikings, and vicious metal monsters called 'Daleks', and a sinister Mistress, of shapeshifting Zygons among mankind, of ghosts and mummies, chilling tales of horror; Jane reading out an extract from her latest work and Clara offering suggestions, all of which Jane would proceed to ignore or subvert, out of a playful, friendly sort of spite.
The Doctor, having tired of the social niceties, often avoided these visits of late. He would prefer to retreat into his blue box and do whatever it was the darling eccentric fellow possibly did in there.
All the better for them. When the storytelling was over, matters turned to other things, the way they did. One of them kissed the other and events progressed from there.
There was something melancholy in Clara's features that became more pronounced after they became close, much as the schoolmistress tried to pretend nothing was amiss. Eventually, Clara admitted to a tragedy; the last person she had loved, she had lost. This was her first liaison since. Her heart and been broken, and she had remade it anew in fire and brimstone.
Jane was sorry. There was no room in her heart for jealousy, that she was a stepping stone, a recovery for Miss Oswald. No, she knew Clara did truly love her. It was only concern - this loss had seemingly made Clara quite reckless and headstrong, professing to have put the matter behind her and running headlong into danger with no consideration as to her own safety. Had she always been thus? Or did she change, over time, to become more like the Scotsman - no, although he sounded Scots, Jane knew he was nothing of the sort. The Gallifreyan. Admittedly, Gallifrey could have been a place in Scotland, it had a Celtic ring to it. Clara was changed though, and though Jane still loved her, it did not seem as though Clara could love. That she was revelling too much in her travels throughout human and non-human history alike. That she had lost her soul somewhere, in that blue box.
"I have a proposition, Miss Oswald," Jane said, once, mock formality, a smile toying on her face "Give up these wild fantasies. You have said it yourself, your life is put at risk. Stay here with me."
Clara beamed "I'd love to Jane, really, but I can't. There's a whole universe out there! I'd ask you to come with me but the Doctor, you know. Meddling with history. He would throw a hissy fit if I abducted Jane Austen."
"Who says it would be abduction? Surely, if I am willing to go…" Jane smiled, pressing a kiss on Clara's hand.
The schoolmistress shook her head "I wish. We would make the most awesome team. He'd probably get jealous of how amazing we are. He can't stand anyone outshining him, he can't. Like a little kid- sorry, child. Besides, what if you got hurt?"
"You have no such concerns for your own welfare?"
Clara shifted and sighed "I'll be fine, Jane. Promise. The Doctor wouldn't let anything happen to me."
Unconvinced, Jane nodded, and Clara smiled winningly, and pulled her into a tight embrace, kissing her.
It was their last such night of impropriety. Clara never returned. Jane had some truly wonderful japes planned, when her lover came back. She would come back. She always came back. It was a matter of time.
Where was she?
Jane waited.
In the meantime she wrote . Wrote, and wrote, and wrote.
She edited, and revised, and altered. She wrote. Especially for Clara. When would she arrive? She wrote.
When Clara got here, she would have the talking-to of her life. Then she could sit down and Jane would read to her. Just as soon as Clara got here…
He did not attend in person. Perhaps he simply could not face the memories of earlier visits in happier times. A letter arrived in his stead, dated incorrectly, intended to have arrived only days after their last visit, coming some years later instead.
Clara had died.
Subjectively speaking, Clara was yet to be born. Whatever Jane wrote now would find its way through time to that lovely little woman with the loud laugh and the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. Clara would grow up reading them, never knowing they were intended for her.
Jane wrote. She published. She put her work out there. She met the Doctor again, wearing a different face and unknowing of what was to come in his life, of the cataclysmic war that would cleave all of reality in two. Of Clara. Who was dead. It was her duty to help him, and help him she did, but Clara, Clara was gone.
And the stories, they waited out the centuries, until a girl called Clara Oswald chose Pride and Prejudice from the shelf at her local library and collapsed back onto a beanbag to read it, devouring every word and wishing, with all her heart, that she would be whisked back in time to meet the author of such a book.
Wished so hard, that when a man in a time machine came along, the decision to visit Jane Austen was a natural one.
At first, she only wanted to discuss writing. And then Jane kissed her - or vice-versa, whichever way it was - and it progressed from there…
Now that was something to tell her class about.
"Jane Austen. Amazing writer, brilliant comic observer, and strictly amongst ourselves a phenomenal kisser…"